Alexandersmap

    Tag: Massachusetts

    • Friday the 13th and Ghost Stories

      Here we are again, at a point where the days and numbers on the calendar align and give us another Friday the 13th.  In general good things have come my way on a day many people associate with bad luck.  My son was born on a Friday the 13th, making it a very lucky day indeed.  More often than not you get what you expect in life, and if you’re primed to look for the negative it’ll find you.  I’ll stick with the opposite point of view, thank you.  Optimism with a healthy dose of stoicism seems to work for me.

      I’ve written before about dancing with ghosts.  For me ghosts aren’t the creepy spirits that get annoyed that you’re in their space, they’re the people who lived in the past who’s story is all around us.  Historical figures and anonymous lives alike, all lived before we were here.  The stone wall standing alone in the woods, the old foundation on Isle of Skye left from the Clearances, the soot on the ceiling of a cave from fires long ago, and the groove worn into a stair tread; These are my ghosts. I love uncovering the stories of some person from centuries ago and visiting the place they did something memorable, and maybe their grave to remind them they aren’t forgotten.  We all want to be remembered, don’t we?  At least for a few generations.  Make the ripple last as long as possible, hopefully in a positive way.

      I’ve been bumping into the other kind of ghost stories lately.  People who encounter poltergeists.  A poltergeist wants attention, making its presence known by messing with things in “our” world, crossing some border between death and life.  Frankly I never think about the poltergeist kind of ghost.  Maybe I’m closed-minded about it, or maybe they see me dancing with other ghosts and leave me alone.  But I’ve got this stack of stories people tell me about poltergeists they’ve encountered, and after a while you have to wonder what’s real and what’s imagined.  I see good things on Friday the 13th, others see bad things; who’s right?

      Yesterday I was speaking with a Town Clerk in Connecticut.  I’d stopped to pick up a death certificate for an ancestor as a favor for my mother.  We noticed on the death certificate that this relative had died from a fall down the stairs, breaking his neck.  I joked about that house being haunted and the clerk, not missing a beat, told me about Antonio, pointing to the vault and saying he died right in there and still haunts the place. I looked in the vault and asked if he preferred Antonio or Tony.  We finished our transaction and I was on my way, with one more ghost story added to the list. I don’t know if Antonio is a poltergeist haunting the vault at Town Hall, but I do know that he tragically died in the vault at some point in history.  And people are still talking about him to this day.

      I’ve heard similar stories from separate friends about encounters at hotels in Boston and Nashville, and some good friends that insist there’s a ghost in a family home on Cape Cod.  What do I know?  I’m not in the poltergeist business.  I have no desire to stay in Lizzy Borden’s house for a night trying to bait unseen ghosts to come out and play.  No, I’m trying to bring their stories alive without all the mischief.  But now and then I do hear a whisper in the wind, feel a spirit in the air, and I give a nod to acknowledge.  Walking alone in the woods at Holy Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts in Autumn once had me thinking of Shaker ghosts.  Visiting King Philip’s Seat in Bristol, Rhode Island and spooking a hawk into flight had me hearing whispers of Metacom and the lost Pokanoket tribe as I explored the woods.  And visiting the Winter Street graveyard in Exeter, New Hampshire looking for the grave of Major General Nathaniel Folsom felt like I was being directed around to look at every other Revolutionary War hero’s grave before finding his.  I felt it that day too.

      So here we are on another Friday the 13th.  We generally get what we look for in life, and I hope today brings you good fortune.  If you happen to run into any ghosts, I hope they aren’t poltergeists – those buggers are nothing but mischief.

    • Beach Sand Reset

      This was one of the most unproductive mornings I’ve had in some time.  I wrote and deleted two blog posts because they were crap.  Work slid sideways and never got back on the runway.  Out of sorts with just about everything this morning.  These things happen, and I tried working through it for awhile…  with limited success.  So I decided to take a walk at lunch, and decided it had been too long since I’ve walked the beach on Plum Island.  Walking on the beach is great any time of year, but my favorite time is winter.  I saw three people and two dogs the entire walk, benefiting greatly in my isolation for walking in the middle of a work day in winter.  But that’s why I went there.

      The surf was up, offering a wonderful soundtrack to compliment the rhythmic swish, swish of my feet marching across damp, cold sand.  The beach is a traveling art show, with sand sculptures carved by the wind and waves moving from place to place, always different from the last exhibit.  Snow from last night clumped in patches here and there with greatest success on driftwood and the dune grass.  Tiny sand ridges formed from receding waves created Etch A Sketch-like graffiti on the beach; here in this moment, but gone with the wind and high tide.  Driftwood and sea glass and millions of shells mixed into the sand, clumped into patterns by the previous high tide.  I continued my march with purpose, aiming for the Mouth of the Merrimack River.  This was about a 2 1/2 mile round trip, which fit in with the amount of time I had while serving as a good workout with the give of the sand.

      I came across a child’s footprints in the sand running in circles, as children do, going this way and that; directionless.  And I thought to myself, that’s what brought me to the beach today too.  I’d begun the day with high hopes, got distracted by figuring out the logistics of getting from here to the tropics with no real time to work with, and found myself spiraling into a completely unproductive morning.  So the beach was a reset, a chance to clear my head and figure things out.  Ten year plans that break into what am I doing next week kind of thinking.  And some of that got done, but mostly I checked another 10K box and regained my focus on writing.  And when I got back to my work settled back into a groove with that too.  Good things happen when you get outside.  And when outside is a quiet beach all the better.

    • Taking Flight… Again

      Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting in the back seat of a Cessna as my father flew again. Getting back in the left seat of a plane was a bucket list item for our favorite Navy pilot. For me it was a chance to see him in action flying and see the world from a different perspective.

      Commercial flying offers stunning views from a 12″ oval window. I’ve sat in awe at views from 30,000 feet over New Brunswick and the landing over Boston Harbor at Logan Airport. I always try for a window seat on a red eye just so I can catch the sunrise. Flying in a Cessna is different. First, you feel much more connected to the mechanics of flying, even in the back seat. Everything is right there in front of you with instruments, controls and communication with the towers all part of your experience. And that experience! The views are close to 360 degrees, you’re flying over terrain you’ve known from the ground up, seeing it literally from a bird’s eye view at 2000-3500 feet max, and going a lot slower so can savor the view more.

      We flew out of Lawrence Airport, followed the Merrimack River to the sea, turned northward following the beaches up to Portsmouth and then circled in for a touch and go at Pease International Airport before heading back to Lawrence, with a quick circle around the neighborhood in New Hampshire. Clear skies with some wind gusts making it interesting at lower altitudes. Listening to impressive banter between a flight instructor and a Navy pilot all the while. I kept my own chatter to a minimum; I was along for the ride, it was his experience… one I was happy to share.

      This wasn’t my first flight in a Cessna. I’d flown a similar route with the father of a girlfriend in college once. He did all the work, while I sat in the right seat and my girlfriend sat in the back. I’d told myself I’d like to get my pilots license then, and here we are years later with the goal shelved. Money and time and other priorities killed that goal. We can’t do everything, can we? Perhaps not. Watching the Navy fly again reminded me that even the professionals get busy with other things. There’s a shortage of pilots it seems, and work for those who wish to pursue it. I don’t believe I’ll pursue it myself, but the hourly fees to fly with a pro aren’t outrageous. Why wait when the opportunity is so readily available? That’s what brought us here, and the day was a highlight reel of memories and a reminder to not put things off. For me it was a nice change of perspective, and I think my smile was as big as the pilot’s.

      Merrimack River in Haverhill at Groveland Bridge
      Salisbury Beach, surf’s up
      Isle of Shoals
      New Hampshire coast, looking north to Maine
      Pierce Point, Portsmouth Country Club
      Merrimack River

    • I’ll Take the Train, Thank You

      There are many ways to get from Boston to New York City. Driving or taking a bus are viable options that offer advantages in flexibility and economy. Flying used to be the fastest way until security requirements stretched the time commitment to be roughly the same as driving. And then there’s the train, the oldest and still the best option when you’re going from downtown Boston to the heart of Manhattan. And that’s where I find myself this morning, rolling down the tracks looking at the changing landscape of Rhode Island and Connecticut, phone charging, wi-fi and Bluetooth on, coffee at the ready.

      I’ve recently taken the train from London to Liverpool and back, and a sleeper train from London to Edinburgh and back, so the comparison is still fresh in my mind. Amtrak is more expensive and slower than that Virgin train to Liverpool. The infrastructure and number of stops simply don’t allow for long runs at high speed. The difference between the Acela and the regional train is only 30 minutes. If you can tolerate the multiple stops it makes a lot of sense to just take the regional. And really, who cares? I’m sipping coffee, writing and listening to music while someone else does the work. And I didn’t have to wait in a TSA line or take my shoes off for the honor of sitting in this seat. Dog sniffing my bags? Any time you want.

      I’ve driven to New York countless times. It’s a miserable experience unless you manage to time the traffic. Humans aren’t at their best in stop and go traffic, and the 5 minute delay I hit at 5 AM this morning driving to the train station was a good reminder of the horror show that is I-95 through Connecticut. Why subject yourself to that when you don’t have to? And when you finally get to Manhattan mentally spent, you get to spend a fortune to park your car. Then do it all over again going back home. I’ll take the train, thank you.

    • Stumbling Upon Buried Treasure

      While waiting for a taxi to the airport I scanned the wonderful old books lining the shelves at the London hotel I’d been staying in. I do this often when I have moments like this, it’s where the buried treasure is after all. I saw two books on a shelf at eye level that drew my attention; Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana Jr. and an old collection of English poems. I’d read Two Years Before The Mast several years ago at the recommendation of a friend who’s doing exactly that at the moment. I flipped through it quickly, saw the old stamps indicating it was a library book and smiled. Libraries were where I found most of my buried treasure before the Google and Amazon changed everything.

      To this day my favorite discovery was an old copy of Typee by Hermin Melville pulled at random from a university library shelf in the fall of 1984. I was a freshman then, figuring out this college thing, and fascinated with the vast rows of books I could walk through. I picked up Typee and brought it to a reading nook and read the first couple of chapters, quickly falling in love with this other world. I’d return the book and come back again and again to it in the same fashion until I finished it, never checking it out (sadly not including my name on the stamp), but finishing it nonetheless. That friend who loaned me Two Years Before The Mast in turn took my recommendation to read Typee and now has a boat named Fayaway, a compelling character in the story.

      That other book, the one on poetry? I opened to a completely random page in a completely random book in an old library book stuck on a hotel shelf in London….. so you know; random. And I read this:

      Care-Charming Sleep, thou easer of all woes,

      Brother to Death, sweetly thyself dispose

      On this afflicted prince; fall, like a cloud,

      In gentle showers; give nothing that is loud

      Or painful to his slumbers; easy, light,

      And as a purling stream, thou son of Night,

      Pass by his troubled senses; sing his pain,

      Like hollow murmuring wind or silver rain;

      Into this prince gently, oh, gently slide,

      And kiss him into slumbers like a bride! – John Fletcher

      Fletcher died in 1625. Analogies between sleep and dying are common, and Fletcher dabbling with the concept in this poem/song from 400 years ago illustrates that. We all want to gently fall asleep, and given the choice we’d likely all wish the same for our final sleep. Poetry either grabs you or it doesn’t. I haven’t made up my mind on this one, which means it’s the latter. Not everything you pick up in a book is going to be buried treasure. If it were what would be the value anyway? But there’s something to chew on here anyway.

      Two Years Before The Mast was written by a man named Richard Henry Dana Jr. after he left Harvard to regain his health after contracting measles. It’s a fascinating book that illustrates life onboard a merchant ship on a two year journey as they rounded Cape Horn to pick up cattle hides in California to haul back to Massachusetts. Seeing the book again prompted me to read a bit more about Dana, and I was struck by one part of his legacy. Dana Point, California is named after him. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Dana Point, but never made the connection to the book until today. It seems I found some buried treasure after all.

    • Solving the Wren Riddle

      I was clearly wrong. My educated guess was off the mark. My attempts at online research failed. Apps I trusted to point me in the right direction flopped. So it goes.

      I’ve written about my attempts to identify a bird I wasn’t familiar with that has moved into the neighborhood. And not just this neighborhood but I’ve heard a similar song on Cape Cod, as if it was following me across the Bourne Bridge, taunting me all along.  After many fruitless searches I’d finally settled on the Brown Thrasher as the most likely candidate, and have referred to the Brown Thrasher ever since.  But it wasn’t a Brown Thrasher at all.  It was a Carolina Wren.

      The Carolina Wren, as the name indicates, is typically seen (and heard) further south of here.  I’ve seen another “southern bird”‘, the Baltimore Oriole, in Massachusetts and New Hamphire, but this was a new song; a song I couldn’t get out of my head until I solved the riddle.  An app that records birds singing and analyzes it like Shazam continually got the wrong answers.  So I tried a different app, and still continually got the wrong answers.  Frustrated, I emailed the .m4a voice file to Chirp, the second app I tried, and they responded within 24 hours with the elusive answer; Carolina Wren.  A quick search online confirmed this was indeed the singer I’d been searching for all season.  It seems the bird song apps use a strong location filter to eliminate matches that wouldn’t normally be found in your area.  And Carolina Wren’s weren’t thought to settle in New Hampshire so Chirp was eliminating it as a choice.  Well, welcome to the Granite State, my southern friend.

      The New York Times recently published an article detailing the decline of North American birds, and followed that with an article detailing birds moving away from natural territory as the climate changes.  New Hampshire’s Purple Finch is apparently considering a move to other climates.  Thankfully the one’s who visit my backyard haven’t felt so inclined as of yet.  But then again, I have this new visitor to my backyard whom I’ve never had before who might be singing that there’s something to this story after all.

      Carolina Wren teasing me with her song, July 2019

    • A Handshake with Norman Rockwell

      I always make a point of grabbing the newel post and sliding up my hand on the stair railing when visiting the homes of artists, writers and historical figures.  I’ve written about doing this at Ernest Hemingway’s Key West house, at Mark Twain’s Hartford, Connecticut house, and at Robert Frost’s farmhouse in Derry, New Hampshire.  I had the opportunity to do it again when visiting the Norman Rockwell Studio in Sturbridge, Massachusetts recently.  This to me is a handshake with those who came before, and I feel it most profoundly when I visit the places like these where the giants of the past did their greatest work.

      If you live in America you know Norman Rockwell.  His paintings and sketches are more widely known than any other artist in the 20th century, thanks in large part to his work with The Saturday Evening Post during some of the most significant milestones of that century.  Rockwell was capturing the very human moments everyone felt during the Great Depression, World War’s I and II, the Kennedy Assassination, etc.  The museum carries you through his work and is worth a visit.  I’ve driven by it for decades before finally stopping by for an hour while driving home from New York.  Seeing his paintings doesn’t give me the same feeling as seeing Aivazovsky’s The Ninth Wave did, but that’s largely because there’s a humbleness to Rockwell’s work that doesn’t inspire awe as much as appreciation for the incredible detail he put into his work.

      There’s a story of the painting Country Doctor, which when published on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post inspired letters from people asking about the woman in the photograph on the doctor’s desk.  It seemed she looked like a nurse that had treated patients in England during World War II, and a soldier wrote to ask if she was in fact the same woman….  and was.  Such was the detail in Rockwell’s paintings that a random detail in a larger work, shrunk down for the cover of a magazine, sparked recognition. Rockwell apparently made his subjects, mostly his neighbor’s in the Berkshires, laugh while painting, and there’s joy in most of his work.

      I appreciate art, and linger in the museum longer than I should have on my trip home, but for me standing in the space where Rockwell created that art was more impactful. That space is his studio, moved four miles from downtown Stockbridge to a hill overlooking the Housatonic River and the Berkshires in 1976. Rockwell gifted the studio to the Norman Rockwell Museum, and the studio is set up as it would have been in 1961 when Rockwell was painting Golden Rule, which seems appropriate for an artist who’s work reflected that rule. The space is largely the same, if transported from its original foundation in the heart of Stockbridge. The staircase to the loft is roped off, but the newel post and railing are in reach, like a handshake with Norman. And that sums up his art; within reach of everyone. Simple but complex, and beloved, like the artist himself.

    • Ghost Dancers in the Wild

      We’re all borrowing time, and the ground we stand on too. How many people passed through the spot you’re occupying now? And what was their story? That’s history, and you either dance with the ghosts or ignore them. I like to dance with the ghosts – bring them back to life for awhile. Perhaps they’ll welcome me warmly when I reach the other side.

      Yesterday I had a business lunch with a couple of consultants in Boston. After the usual talk of feature enhancements and product roadmap one of the consultants mentioned his drive from Lake George to Quebec City, and suddenly we’re all pulling out our phones comparing pictures of various forts we’ve visited. Were we the hippest table at Row 34 that day? No doubt. But it’s nice to run into people who know the lay of the land as well, or better, than you do.

      I stopped by the Bourne Historical Center recently as a follow-up to a visit I made to the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum a few weeks back. Both are places to meet other history geeks, and places where you can talk openly about King Philip’s War without the listener backing away slowly. Ghost dancers aren’t always easy to spot in the wild, but corral us in a museum and we open right up.

      Aptucxet was missing one artifact that brought me eventually to the Bourne Historical Center. Specifically, a rock. History is all sticks and stones and the occasional cannon, isn’t it? No, it’s the stories behind those things. It’s always the stories, the rest of this stuff just helps you see it better.

      Anyway, that rock. The Bourne Stone. A piece of granite engraved with markings (pictographs) sometime before the 1650’s. Was it some kid with time on their hands scratching pictures on a rock or some ancient wisdom being passed down to us in a language lost to history? Who knows? But there’s a story in that rock, from the person who marked it to the threshold it once occupied at a Native American meetinghouse and the many people who have stepped on it, touched it and speculated on its meaning ever since.

      I’m no archeologist, but I found it interesting enough to stop by for a look. Maybe the sailboat engraved on the stone captured my attention, or maybe I have a thing for questions with no answer. Whatever it is, I’ve checked a box that’s been nagging me a bit. The mystery of the Bourne Stone for me was solved. What is it? What does it look like? The stories behind it I leave for other ghost dancers.

    • Sassafras

      Serendipity placed me in front of sassafras twice in almost exactly 24 hours. Yesterday I was with a friend and expert forager who saw it on the edge of the woods. He pointed out each of the three unique leaves of the sassafras tree and pulled out a small root for me to smell.

      Today I visited the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum in Bourne, Massachusetts and what do I see but a sassafras tree! The museum guide pointed out the leaves, scratched the root to have me smell and it was déjà vu all over again.

      The original tea that settlers in North America drank and exported was made from the root of the sassafras tree. Sassafras was used for other things ranging from shipbuilding to toothbrushes, but when you smell it you probably think of root beer. And of course you’d be right; the oil from sassafras root gives flavor and the name to root beer. That was my favorite soft drink growing up. I don’t drink it sugary drinks anymore, but at the moment I’m craving some root beer. Instead, I purchased some sassafras tea from the gift store at the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum and will make a sugar-free sassafras drink. And toast the tree it came from.

    • Snatching Necklaces From the Sea

      “The wind freshened, and the Spray rounded Deer Island light at the rate of seven knots.
      Passing it, she squared away direct for Gloucester to procure there some fisherman’s stores. Waves dancing joyously across Massachusetts Bay met her coming out of the harbor to dash them into myriads of sparkling gems that hung about her at every surge. The day was perfect, the sunlight clear and strong. Every particle of water thrown into the air became a gem, and the Spray, bounding ahead, snatched necklace after necklace from the sea, and as often threw them away. We have all seen miniature rainbows about a ship’s prow, but the Spray flung out a bow of her own that day, such as I had never seen before. Her good angel had embarked on the voyage; I so read it in the sea.” – Josh Slocum, Sailing Alone Around the World

      I’ve read that passage a few times over the years since first reading this book, and did so again last night.  There’s magic in setting out on a new adventure, and I feel this paragraph captures that exhilaration.  These are the highlighter moments in the novel of life; the first ride without the training wheels when you have balance and velocity with you and you feel like you’re flying, boarding a plane for a flight overseas to a place you’ve always dreamed of going, or simply the first feeling out steps on a long hike when you realize everything is good to go.  Preparedness meets possibility, and the world is in front of you welcoming you to explore your potential.  Ready?  Go!

      Of course, not every moment is a highlight moment, but there should be something in every day that makes you feel alive.  Every dawn is full of possibility, if we’ll only get out and greet the day.  Over the weekend I re-acquainted myself with my sister’s dog Parker. She’s a yellow lab with a highly expressive face and eyes that tell you everything you need to know.  Reading about Slocum’s boat Spray, I thought of Parker’s expression as she realized she was going for a swim in the bay.  Sheer delight, and a sprint to the water.  May we all have more of that in our time here.

      What shall we make of this day?